Tag Archives: Mobile device

Ideas are central to our need to connect and communicate – and technology has become a pivotal process or tool in that social and intellectual process of connectedness. Has it transformed learning in higher education? Not so much!

Let’s be clear – using technology and/or technology tools does not equate with empowerment of the learning/knowledge formation experience – unless the technology connection allows for critical knowledge connections to form, or transform, the experience of learning. This is a huge challenge, and while I understand that technology is around us (and that in my case I deliver all the learning experiences in my degree programs with technology) I am not convinced that I know yet what online learning is all about.

For example, Steve Wheeler re-iterated the often-stated importance of technology in schools in his recent post Talking Tech:

The personal, mobile device has started to transform learning in both formal and informal contexts. Learning in any place and at any time is going to gain traction in the coming years, and the emphasis will be on personal learning. Students can gain access to any amount of resources and connections that will help them to learn; they can use their mobile phones to connect with others; and also create and share their own content with potentially huge audiences outside and beyond the walls of the classroom. The value of this is immeasurable.

Trouble is, this does not convince me at all that we have made significant progress in understanding exactly what we are aiming for. Tim Klapdor expressed this very clearly in reflecting on the current state of mobile learning:

The reality is that institutions (and the entire edtech industry) have under estimated the paradigm shift required to embrace mobile. It’s still treated as just a feature, or a nice to have rather than the future of computing.

Tim pins down the practicalities of mobile learning in higher education, and mirrors my experience (and huge challenges) of trying to shift a university environment past the bleeding obvious integration of mobile (there’s an BB App for that) (it’s clunky at best).

I prefer to treat mobile as the tool for daily, fast interaction within a cohort of curious learners. It would be arrogant of me to claim to know everything about the subject areas that I may be working in – and so I see learning as a peer education experience. So mobile is vital for ease of connection, and engagement with the very essence of our critical connections – people, information, tools, communication, and more. How else can we genuinely power our minds? How else do we move past the more traditional higher education experience of “I have the content, now you learn it please” model of engagement?

What we have is a an information interconnection between us which can be conceptualized as complexes of activities, tools and values, and for this the personal learning environments we create for students in the higher education experience must represent learning and inquiry that is responsive to these new information landscapes.

More easily said than done – as we are hamstrung by systems and practices that make it hard to liberate the potential of technology and mobile learning. Add to that the culture of openness that has had a significant impact on the educational sphere, as shown by the rise of open educational resources (OER) and open access (OA). While a complete transition to information openness has not yet been realised, educational practices that are entirely focused around traditional, closed and proprietary knowledge systems are in tension with these changing information landscapes.

So I find myself wrangling with BlackBoard, and horrified by the constraints that the Blackboard CSS places on the learning experience. What a contrast to read GitHub for Academics: the open-source way to host, create and curate knowledge which was orinally published back in 2013 at Hybrid Pedagogy. I read it then, and read it again now, and (depressingly) realise that in the normal day-to-day work I am involved in, pure, focused and genuine innovation is well-nigh impossible. Unless of course you are head of an innovation unit, or in some other fancy role, and have time and money to throw at the project of transforming higher education.

I wish! Academics like me don’t get that kind of opportunity.

All I can do is work with my students in my newest degree program, and hope that in some small way we can make critical connections, power our minds together, and move learning forward to the future!

This week we completed another phase of work on the Horizon Report K-12 Edition. A couple of things caught my eye as a result, prompted by the revisions we were doing.

I remember just three years ago how we debated, and considered ‘cloud computing’. It was a new concept in education back in 2009, and so the Time-to-Adoption Horizon was two to three years. Pretty accurate really!

No mention of augmented reality! No mention of quite a few things that were debated this time, some of which will make it into the 2011 report. I think this is extraordinary really, and an indication of the pace of change.

Here are the two augmented reality tidbits that I came across – one for everyday shopping experiences, and one for education. Keep you eye on augmented reality – it really will become a way to augment our best aspirations for making learning new, innovative, and relevant to our kids!

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) is the concept of superimposing virtual content (such as graphics) on top of a view of the real world as seen through a camera. AR transforms your mobile device into what has been described as a magic looking glass where you can interact with the real world. From gaming and play to interactive media/marketing to instructional how-to/aid, augmented reality opens the door for new mobile applications and services. Commoncraft provides the quick explanation which you can share with teachers.

What is Guubes? and how can they be used in education?

Guubes is an augmented reality educational learning aid designed for Key Stage 1 children. Roleplay, numeracy and word play games provide a real engaging experience in classrooms and at home. Guubes is a scaleable augmented reality learning aid. It can be played with at home on a laptop screen with webcam, or in school using an interactive whiteboard and webcam.

Augmented Reality for Shopping

While this was an advertising campaign from Tissot watches, the potential of AR to engages consumers, test a product and make choices is tantalising. Visit AR week to learn more. Visit here and print your own pdf to give it a go!

I do like the smiles that the Ford’s Grand C-Max inspires. Visit AR week to learn more about this and other product

According to Nathan King at QR Code Awareness, mobile devices have changed the way consumers access the Internet as well as the way marketers are trying to reach customers. QR codes – which direct you to a website, phone number, SMS or other call to action when scanned with your smartphone – are showing up everywhere.

Although QR codes and mobile barcodes have been around for several years, the explosion of the smartphone market allowed barcode scanning to grow 700 percent from January 2010 to July 2010.

I’ve started spotting them on the back of new books that we are buying for students! I haven’t spotted anyone scanning the QR code as yet :-)

Congratulations to the fantastic team at Loreto Normanhurst Learning Resources Centre for getting their ebook initiative up and running successfully.

This is just one wonderful example of what can be done in schools to support literacy and reading enjoyment – particularly where the students are keen to use their mobile devices to enjoy the world of books.